one, two, three
by SylverEyes
Summary: AU; FinnQuinnPuck, too much of something.


Super, super AU and back at the beginning of the series, before I had watched much. I knew Quinn was pregnant, I knew the baby was Puck's, but I didn't know she told Finn it was his. However, I still do like this piece a lot, so I'm posting it anyway. I hope you get a kick out of it maybe. Read and enjoy!

* * *

"I really want to be a good father…" Finn whispers to her, and he does it just right. He caresses her cheek with rhythmic movements of his hand, he pushes her hair out of her eyes, he leans down and kisses her oh-so-softly on the forehead.

She reacts perfectly, with the glistening eyes, the trembling lower lip, the watery smile that she sends his way, assuring him that she knows and she is grateful. They hug, and it is desperate and intimate, the silent cries of two teenagers who aren't ready and don't know how to be parents.

When they let go, Finn pecks her lightly on the lips and hurries off to his next class, sending glances over his shoulder that worry, that watch, that wish. She stares at his retreating back, hand on her locker door, gripping it so hard that her knuckles are turning white.

Once they manage to stop clinging to each other with their eyes, she closes her locker with a sigh, and finds that Puck is standing there, his expression curiously pensive.

"Finn'll be a good father," he says quietly.

"Finn will be a perfect father," Quinn snaps as though Puck has insulted him with his comment.

"Yeah. I know,"

"What do you want?" she asks him, and to her horror she feels the tears welling up in her eyes once more, although this time they are not because her perfect boyfriend says the perfect thing to make her feel perfect about the whole situation.

Puck is silent, studying her, and she feels x-rayed, like she can't hide anything from his scrutinizing gaze. He finally shakes head, and Quinn refuses to acknowledge that her stomach might have dropped because of this action.

"Nothing," he tells her and shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, turning on his heel and heading to his own next period. Quinn watches him as he leaves too, and he can feel the weight of that on his back, but he will not look around at her. He won't.

The blonde, perfect cheerleader with her perfect hair and perfect face and perfect body, and the perfect boyfriend with the perfect, fairytale relationship leans her head against her locker and cries. She cries, and she doesn't know what she is crying about.

;;

"Beer," Puck says, tossing the can at Finn who catches it instinctively, but looks at it like it is the last thing in the entire world he wants to see right then.

"Come on. It'll make you feel better,"

"No, I can't," decides the quarterback firmly, putting it down on the table in front of him. "I don't want to do that, especially with Quinn having a baby,"

"That is exactly why you should do this," argues Puck, feeling an unreasonable amount of anger flare up at Finn's refusal to get himself drunk, to let himself go with his best friend for just a while, because that's how they have always dealt with issues.

"She's having a baby and she's keeping it," Finn mutters to himself, putting his head in his hands so that the words are slightly muffled. "She's keeping the baby,"

"I know," Puck snaps too harshly, although he feels justified for no reason at all.

"Dude, I want to be a good dad. I do. But I can't… I mean, we're still in high school. I'm so not ready for a kid. I might be able to do it, to be a good father, but I don't want to be. This is like my worst nightmare coming true. Man, I'm not ready for this."

Puck wants to say that he knows. He wants to say that Finn can do it, that he'll be perfect for the baby and for Quinn. He wants to be the best friend that his buddy needs right now, but the words stick in his throat and get replaced with 'It's my baby, let me be the father'.

The teen swallows hard and opens his own beer can. "Drink. Now," he orders, and this time, Finn complies without a word.

;;

He wants to know whose baby it is—of course he does. Quinn can't begrudge him that curiosity, even though she knows that she will never, ever tell him. She can tell when he looks at her and the shadows cross his face that he is thinking of how much she actually thinks of him. She knows that he wonders if she cares for him enough to allow him to be the father of the baby that isn't his by blood.

Of course she will let him be the father. He loves her, and this baby needs the love that they are both going to give it to get through. It would be a perfect situation in a few years. It would be perfect if the baby was actually his.

Puck is giving her weird looks now, and Quinn can't ignore them. They aren't what they used to be—anger, hurt, lust—but are now thoughtful, solemn, or even blank, and she doesn't know why he keeps doing that to her, and why she's so frustrated that she can't figure out what they mean.

She and Finn lay on the grass in her front yard, she with her head on his shoulder and eyes closed, basking in the afternoon sun. He keeps a hand on her stomach even though nothing can be felt at this stage, and they say nothing to each other. No words are needed between them they decide silently. They both know what all this means.

Sometimes, in the dark of night before they separate to go home he will pull her close so that she is pressed right up against him, and he will lean down and breathe into her ear that question, the question that she hates but she cannot hate him for:

"Who is the dad?"

He asks because the night sky is blanketing their fears, because the moon and the stars are the only light shining down onto them, because the darkness hides their uncertainty and their insecurities, and pretends that they never existed once the sun comes up.

And she can't tell him, she can't. So she shakes her head and leans into him, holding him close for longer than necessary. She can't tell him who the real father is, but it doesn't matter to her, and it won't matter to the baby once it is born.

They both know that, but she wonders if they both believe.

;;

"I'm sorry," Puck tells her one day, and she doesn't like it any more than she likes him verbally abusing her.

If this was a normal situation, Quinn probably would have laughed. She may have ignored him and continued walking, or she may have even turned to him and said, "For what?" But this is no normal situation; she knows exactly what he is talking about, and she can't pretend like it isn't true.

So she accepts it for what it is. She takes it, the soft tone of voice, the sincerity, the underlying _something_ that she just can't place, and tries to throw it away. But he is looking at her like he is expecting her to say something, and she can't.

It seems like her life is full of things that she can't do, nowadays.

So Quinn nods at him, and he takes it at face value, walking away without so much as another word. If she wasn't going to let him apologize, to take responsibility and move on, then there was no point in him feeling guilty at all. Puck decides this during school that day, but the decision is much easier than the implementation.

It is spurred on by his resignation. _"Hey, don't talk to my girlfriend like that," _rings in his head over and over like a mantra, a song that is stuck in his head and won't leave, no matter what he tries.

My girlfriend. My girlfriend. Finn's girl. Not Puck's. Finn's girlfriend.

Puck closes his eyes and doesn't allow himself to think about what would happen if that wasn't true. That kind of thinking doesn't help his cause anyway. He's already kicking himself for sleeping with his best friend's girl, but things are never allowed to be simple for him, are they?

;;

Quinn knows that Finn wonders why Puck seems to be so invested in her well being. It wasn't difficult for her to guess that her boyfriend would tell his best friend about the baby that she was going to be having; he just never counted on that best friend being the father of the baby.

There was no way that she was going to be telling him, and if Puck continued the way that he was acting, he wasn't going to be telling him either. Still, it looked weird to have Puck worried for her, helping her, watching her to make sure that she was always okay.

"Puck wants me to be happy, and that includes making sure that you're alright," Finn rationalizes one night when they are watching a movie together on his couch. Quinn says nothing, but she does burrow deeper into his side, wishing that Finn's hypothesis was correct.

She tries to tell Puck to leave her alone, but the words never come out right, and it almost always ends with her crying. He never says a word every time she does this, just listens. If an outsider saw them, they might even think that he was bored with the situation, but she knows better.

Quinn just wishes that everything could go back to normal.

;;

Finn lies in his best at night, wide awake and staring at the ceiling. He thinks a lot. He thinks about how his high school girlfriend is now going to have a baby, and he's going to have to balance that with all his other responsibilities. He thinks about Puck and how helpful he's been, in his own way, even if it's just getting him drunk for one night so that he can forget about his problems. He thinks about how he's still a kid himself.

He thinks about how he knows that they aren't prepared for this.

He can't tell anyone about this. He doesn't want to ruin his reputation, Quinn's reputation. He doesn't want to ruin anything. But things are already beginning to crumble, and he can feel from the way his heart speeds up when he sees Quinn that the stress is building even now.

"A baby will change everything," he told Puck one of the times that they were unwinding together after practice. "I don't want anything to change,"

Puck is blunt, and he doesn't hide what he thinks from anyone. Finn appreciates that about him. "You don't have a choice if you're keeping it,"

They say nothing else, because what else is there to say? Both of them know that it's true, and dwelling on the topic just makes it more depressing than it needs to be. So they sit and neglect their homework together in Puck's basement.

;;

Finn and Quinn and Puck.

If they weren't so fucked up, they would be perfect.


End file.
